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Articles by Ruby Namdar
Emunah & the Artist | SAPIR Journal
The word faith often makes me cringe, especially when it is uttered or written in English. It feels too concrete, too categoric, to describe the subtle, ethereal relationship between the individual (and especially the artistic) mind and the sublime, or the Divine. The Hebrew emunah, with its lexical flutter toward the word aman (artist), finds itself more palatable on my tongue.
The Empty Apartment
The apartment stood empty for some six months, maybe more. Who can remember? In the weeks following the passing of its tenant, a lonely and reclusive man none of the neighbors really knew all that well, a certain commotion was recorded: relatives coming and going, carrying with them pieces of furniture and all sorts of bric-a-brac. From time to time you could hear the thuds of hammers and other tools banging against the walls and the tiles, which made the neighbors in adjacent apartments wonder.
Reprise of the Repressed
Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York through September 1, 2024 Classic Stage Company, New York I was at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre one evening in November when a Nazi walked down the aisle and took a seat a few rows in front of me. It was about a month after the Hamas attacks in Israel, and on social media, in Jewish publications, and sometimes even in real life, I heard over and over that Jews needed to abandon the universities, if not the country itself, in the face of rising hatred.
“The Secret of Our Army’s Endurance”
This war just goes on and on. If it doesn’t stop soon, the world will be nothing but ashes, God forbid. It’s like a wild beast, this war— it’s devoured the best of our young men. I tell you, it’s the end of the world! —S.Y. Agnon, To This Day Having spent the years of the Great War in Berlin, Leipzig, and elsewhere in the Second Reich, Agnon came to his aversion to war and militarism honestly.
Jewish Review of Books
A conversation with the Israeli American novelist Ruby Namdar about the novelistic plight of American Jewry in the aftermath of October 7. SHAI SECUNDA: How have you been coping since October 7? RUBY NAMDAR: I’m still trying to wake up from this nightmare. I walk in the streets. I see parents with babies. I can’t look. I walk in Riverside Park, I see an older man hugging his granddaughter, and I almost start crying.
For Israel, Another New Layer of Trauma
I will never forget that mild, golden early-October day almost exactly 50 years ago: the jarring sound of the sirens that tore into the otherworldly silence of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement; the ultra-Orthodox men, still wrapped in their snow-white High Holiday robes and fringed prayer shawls, riding on army jeeps that drove them to their volunteer positions in hospitals and military morgues—an inconceivable sight.
JBC Discussion Guides
JBC Discussion Guides take some of the work out of your book club, whether you’re looking for help selecting books, or need some conversation starters. Check out the annual selection guides for a curated list of books to read for the year, and the individual guides to add depth (and some fun) to your book club meeting.
From Place to Place in Search of a Place: Reading Agnon in Berlin
Last spring, I became inexplicably fixated on a distant, autumnal detail: whether I would be able to build a sukkah in Berlin. An unexpected invitation to spend a fellowship year working on my next book at a distinguished institute near the wooded edges of the city was almost too good to be true. Yes, it was far from my family in Israel, but it was closer than the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where I normally teach.
As American as Augie March
Xargol Books 356 pp., 98 NIS In the preface to Shanim tovot (Happy New Years), published earlier this year, the editor, Dr. Gabriela Sadan (Sadovnik), informs us that the main text has “no literary value whatsoever.” But then Sadan, a prominent academic who researches contemporary American feminist thought and women’s migration history, observes that in our capitalist and patriarchal society, literary value itself is an illusion, merely a register of oppressive power relations.
Joshua Cohen, Rivka Galchen & Ruby Namdar: Remembering A.B. Yehoshua
Come to explore Yehoshua’s legacy and the role of Hebrew literature and language in Israel and America with authors Joshua Cohen, Rivka Galchen, and Ruby Namdar. A.B. Yehoshua, one of Israel’s most prolific and revered authors, died in June.
The Best Books for Hanukkah
recommended by Dara Horn People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn Hanukkah means 'a dedication' and the celebration of the Jewish holiday towards the end of every year commemorates the success of the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire and the re-consecration of the Temple of Jerusalem in the second century BCE.
The Wizard of Words and the Baggy Monster: Rereading Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness
Amos Oz, whose death at the end of 2018 left a gaping hole in the fabric of Hebrew and Israeli literature and culture, was always more than just an author. Oz was a symbol—almost a fetish—of who we Israelis thought we were or fancied ourselves to be. He embodied every captivating quality, be it real or imagined, of the mythological sabra: he was brilliant yet humble, sophisticated and self-aware but not neurotic, highly idealistic but also tolerant and pragmatic.
Climate Change, Stephens-Weiss, IB-Elazar Stern, Shabbat Shirah
Watch Kabbalat Shabbat services from a modern Orthodox synagogue, The Hampton Synagogue of West Hampton Beach, NY; and Shabbat Services from Reform synagogue, Central Synagogue of New York City every Friday night on JBS.
Gordis Friedman, Spy Behind The Plate, Bruce Buck on L'Chayim and Sukkot services
Dear Friends, Due to the Jewish holidays, this week's JBS Sunday Email is abbreviated. We hope you all had a wonderful High Holidays and we wish you a year of health and joy. HOLIDAY SOLICITATION BE PART OF THE "MATCHING GIFT" Your financial support of JBS is vital to our ability to continue producing JBS. Just like "PBS," we rely solely on you! If you enjoy JBS, please make a donation to JBS now.
Conference on Antisemitism, Jake Ehrenreich with Shulem, Celebrating Harvey Kaylie z"l
Dear Friends, We begin this week by giving you a front row seat at an in-depth discussion of the dangers inherent in the spread of antisemitism in the United States and in Europe, as the Conference of Presidents convenes an all-star panel including: Irwin Cotler, Eric Goldstein, Jonathan Greenblatt, David Harris, Malcolm Hoenlein, Kenneth Marcus, Dan Mariaschin and Elan Carr - the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism (Monday 7:30pm).
Israeli Election Night (Tue 7pm), Ron Dermer & Ethan Bronner, Kushner-Psalm 23, Yishai Fleisher, Riskin-Brander
SUNDAY APRIL 7, 2019 06:00A Week in Review JBS Week In Review Week in Review with JBS anchor Teisha Bader bringing viewers stories from the past week of Jewish interest in America, Israel and around the world. A JBS News exclusive. 06:30A Harmony Yoga Kripalu Yoga Sessions Occupational Therapist and Reiki Master Carol Shwidock leads viewers through yoga exercises to strengthen and restore body, mind and spirit.
New Year's Eve fun; plus Jake Ehrenreich Show #2, Tzipi Livni, Guns & Religion
LAST TWO DAYS TO HELP JBS CROSS THE FINANCIAL GOAL LINE! We are at 87% of our goal Dear Friends - I cannot enough all of you who participated in our Celebration Telethon this past Thursday night. I was very moved and touched. Of course, tomorrow is the last day of the calendar year - which means today and tomorrow is your last chance to help JBS reach its financial goal for calendar year 2018. We need one more push very much.
Jewish Review of Books
Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought Chad Alan Goldberg The University of Chicago Press 256 pp., $35 Have the Jews been the quintessentially modern people? Or was modernity instead something alien to them, a force that struck them with a violent shock?
Year End Round Table, 92Y-Jews & Jesus, Ido Aharoni-Israel & Progressive Jews, Welcoming The Stranger
SUNDAY DECEMBER 16, 2018 06:00A Week in Review Week in Review with JBS anchor Teisha Bader bringing viewers stories from the past week of Jewish interest in America, Israel and around the world. A JBS News exclusive. 06:30A Harmony Yoga Occupational Therapist and Reiki Master Carol Shwidock leads viewers through yoga exercises to strengthen and restore body, mind and spirit.
Glick, Bolton, Levin; Jared Kushner; Filmmaker 93-Queen; Eichmann Trial; Welcome The Stranger; Avi Weiss
SUNDAY DECEMBER 9, 2018 07:00A Shalom Kids Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, a mother-daughter writing team, read stories to children for Chanukah at the JCC in Stamford, Ct. (How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah and Jewish Fairy Tale Feats). 07:30A Shalom Kids Learn about Chanukah, the festival of lights, with Shifra, Darah, and Fella on this episode of Mr. Bookstein's Store. A JBS original children's series.
Talmuds and Dragons
The Inquisitor’s Tale is not a typical “Jewish kids’ book.” It does not instill Jewish identity, and most of its characters are non-Jews. Nonetheless, having stumbled upon it in my capacity as my children’s chief procurer of bedtime stories featuring magic and swordfights, I have come to view it as offering a singularly groundbreaking model, albeit a flawed one, for thinking about the possibilities of Jewish children’s literature.
Book Review | Kafka’s Last Trial by Ruby Namdar
Book Review | Kafka’s Last Trial by Ruby Namdar Who Owns Kafka? by Ruby Namdar September 7, 2018 in 2018 September-October, Arts & Culture, Featured Kafka’s Last Trial by Benjamin Balint W. W. Norton & Company 2018, 288 pp, $26.95 “One summer morning in Jerusalem, Eva Hoffe, eighty-two, sat with her hands clasped on a polished curved wood bench in an alcove of the Israeli Supreme Court’s high-ceilinged lobby.
How Philip Roth Made a Jewish American Writer of Me
It was eighteen years ago, almost to the day, when I had my first taste of Philip Roth. Growing up in Jerusalem in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had I gone to my school’s library and asked for “Jewish Literature,” I would have most probably been directed to the works of S. I. Agnon, the great master of modern Hebrew literature, but most certainly not to the works of Roth, Bellow, Malamud and the other great names of the 20th Century Jewish American canon. Why?
In The News: AIPAC Review – Ron Kampeas
The Washington Bureau Chief of the JTA, Ron Kampeas, reviews the 2018 AIPAC National Policy Conference with Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and members of Congress; discusses bi-partisanship; and comments on PM Netanyahu’s attitude toward the Two-State Solution.
Mordechai: Snoop, Loafer, Busybody, Savior
Didn’t have time to read the Megillah this Purim? No worries! To celebrate the holiday, we asked five writers to reflect on the story’s five leading characters. Missed the previous installments? Click here to read about Ahasuerus, and here to read about Vashti. Who was Mordechai, really? I am not asking about the historical aspects of his character which are, of course, both non-existent and totally irrelevant. It is the literary character of Mordechai that intrigues me.
An Ode to David Grossman
In the beginning, there was the voice. David Grossman’s young, raspy, seductive voice narrating the early afternoon kids’ radio show Hatul Basak (Cat in the Bag) we all listened to religiously while our parents took their nap before going back to work. There was something assuring, and self-assured, about that voice.
An Unusual Jewish Novel, Full of Blood and Incense
Fiction Jan. 10, 2018 THE RUINED HOUSE By Ruby Namdar Translated by Hillel Halkin 514 pp. Harper. $29.99. It’s been a season of reckoning for our high priests, as one after another, in the film industry, journalism, politics, academia and other fields, have been judged and sometimes punished for their sins. How eerie that Ruby Namdar’s strange and exhilarating novel, “The Ruined House,” should appear in English translation just now.
The Ruined House: A Novel (An Excerpt)
In 2014 Ruby Namdar won the prestigious Sapir Prize for his novel Ha-bayit asher necherav, the first time in the award’s history that it went to a writer not living in Israel. On November 7, 2017, Harper released it under the title The Ruined House: A Novel, in an English translation by Hillel Halkin. The Jewish Review of Books is pleased to present this excerpt from the novel’s opening.
Washington Independent Review of Books
Some books are so spectacularly original, so far beyond the boundaries of any reader’s expectations, and so challenging that they establish a new point of reference for any further discussions of literary achievement. Ruby Namdar’s The Ruined House, set at the dawn of the 21st century, explores the givens of a cataclysmic era that may become a period of tumultuous cleansing.
Leonardo da Vinci
Walter Isaacson, who recently authored the door-stopping, New York Times bestselling biography of Steve Jobs, turns his attention to Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci in his latest book. Careful scouring of Leonardo’s notebooks, located variously in the United States, France, England and Italy, enabled Isaacson to write a work of breathtaking scope and intimacy.
How Tisha B'Av Invented the Jews
The destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple by the hands of the Romans in the year 70 CE seems to most of us, contemporary Jews, as a distant historical event, anecdotal at best – quite marginal to the way we conceive our identity. Few stop to think of how this event—which in my opinion was the formative trauma around which our identity was shaped—effects who we are as Jews today and informs our sense of collective-self and reality.
On Agnonizing in English
A City in Its Fullness by S. Y. Agnon, edited by Alan Mintz and Jeffrey Saks Toby Press, 617 pp., $29.95 Ancestral Tales: Reading the Buczacz Stories of S.Y. Agnon by Alan Mintz Stanford University Press, 440 pp., $65 It is hard to convey the specific gravity of S. Y. Agnon in Israeli literary culture. For the Hebrew reader, Agnon is not merely canonical, he stands almost outside of time. One can get a sense of this in the recent remarks of one of Israel’s leading literary critics.
Recipes from 7 Nations Trump Banned From U.S.
At a time like this, food can seem like a frivolous topic. But it’s not. Food is about sharing and connecting. Food is about breaking boundaries and crossing borders. I know it’s sappy, but as far as I’m concerned, food is love. Still, I was feeling a little queasy about writing, editing and posting the regular fare. And it hit me: We would provide lovely recipes from each of the nations the president has banned.
A Foreign Song I Learned in Utah
What could be more Jewish than winning the Nobel Prize? According to a recent accounting, of the 850 recipients since the prize’s inception, 181 (or 21.294 percent) have been Jews. If the Nobel Prize were the electoral college, Jews would be the state of Wyoming, represented way beyond their actual size in the population. So when Bob Dylan became the surprise winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature on October 13, 2016, it could be seen as further proof of his Jewishness.
400 Years of Jerusalem Culture
JERUSALEM: 1000-1400 Every People Under Heaven Edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb Illustrated. 352 pp. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. $75. Jerusalem’s veneer of harmony, tolerance and inclusiveness is as thin and as alluring as the fine layer of gold covering the gray lead dome standing on the top of the contested Temple Mount, or the Haram al-Sharif as it is called in Arabic.
In Defense of Carelessness
Sixteen years ago, on a beautiful, bright, cold day, I stood on the bank of the Hudson River, hand-in-hand with Carolyn, the woman I loved, and had what turned out to be the most important conversation of my life. Little did I know that this pleasant afternoon stroll would mark the beginning of my grand journey — a journey that would redefine my relationship to myself, my Israeliness, my Jewish identity, my language, and my career as a writer. It was the last day of winter break.
Tradition, Creativity, and Cognitive Dissonance
Just over a year ago in these pages, I wrote a requiem for Conservative Judaism. In the aftermath of the controversy stirred up by that essay, I have continued to think about what went wrong with the movement. At the very same time, I have also been writing a short history of Israel and about the ways in which Zionist ideas did—and did not—come to fruition in the Jewish state. Perhaps inevitably, the two projects have begun to inform one another.
Jewish Geography
Roads Taken: The Great Jewish Migrations to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way by Hasia R. Diner Yale University Press, 280 pp., $35 The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire by Adam D.
Back to School - With River of Cash To Fight BDS
Students returning to college in the coming days can expect to find the same campus tensions over Israel that they left behind in June. But they will notice a new reality: much more pro-Israel activity, fueled by a large new flow of cash. The Campus Maccabees, backed by up to $50 million from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and others, are gearing up to campaign against perceived efforts to delegitimize Israel.
Leon Rodriguez's Jewish Journey From Cuba to Top Immigration Post
Leon Rodriguez spread out a collage of black-and-white family photos he keeps in his Washington office. There was his father, surrounded by Jewish activists under a picture of Theodor Herzl in Havana; his grandparents smiling to the camera back in Turkey; his grandfather behind the sewing machine, making shoes. Next to the collage rests a thick folder, containing all the immigration files of Rodriguez family members who came to America.
My Jewish Responsibility To Help Refugees
(JTA) — As our car rolled slowly toward Budapest, we saw a huge group heading in the opposite direction on the highway just outside the city: Hundreds of people quietly walking in the breakdown lane, marching toward freedom and peace. I couldn’t tell if the other drivers were lifting their heads or not, but I couldn’t look away, paralyzed by a scene that reminded me of the stories my grandfather told me about his march from Budapest to the concentration camp at Mauthausen.
Rabbi Akiva Never Cooked a Chicken Soup
It’s Friday afternoon, my favorite time of the week. I stand in the kitchen, carefully straining a golden chicken soup through the sieve into an enameled pot containing finely diced carrots. The oven is hot, the large rice pot on the stove-top is covered with a neatly folded kitchen towel, just like the one on my mother’s. This isn’t the only way I have found myself channeling her lately.
Thoroughly Modern Maimonides?: A Response
Lawrence Kaplan's original article on the new wave of Maimonides scholarship appears here. Kaplan's response to Josef Stern can be found here. I wish to thank Lawrence Kaplan for his praise of my recent book The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide. Pursuing the “give-and-take” spirit of his “Thoroughly Modern Maimonides?” (Fall 2014), I would like to continue the conversation and respond to some of the issues he raises. Kaplan writes that “one key statement . . .
Jewish Review of Books
With the recent publication of Hollywood and Hitler: 1933–1939 by Thomas Doherty and The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler by Ben Urwand, Hollywood’s business dealings with Nazi Germany in the 1930s have become a renewed subject of historical controversy.
Jewish Review of Books
Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel's Founding Story by M. M. Silver Wayne State University Press, 266 pp., $29.95 Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller by Ira B. Nadel University of Texas Press, 352 pp., $27.95 Can any modern Jewish literary career have been less likely than that of Leon Uris? Before dropping out of high school to join the Marines, he flunked English three times.
When Eve Ate the Etrog: A Passage from Tsena-Urena
The commandment to recite the blessing over the lulav and the etrog on Sukkot can only be fulfilled with a fully intact fruit. If the etrog’s stem is broken off or missing, it is unfit for ritual use. But as soon as the holiday is over, the etrog is superfluous. It was once the custom for a pregnant woman to bite off the tip of the etrog after services on Hoshanah Rabbah. This strange action is an outgrowth of an early modern Ashkenazic tradition about the pangs of childbirth.
Dirty Hands in Difficult Times
Arthur Goldreich was an undercover ANC operative and close collaborator of Nelson Mandela until he was caught and imprisoned by the South African government in 1963. He soon escaped custody and fled to Israel, where he remained a vocal opponent of apartheid. In 1976, when South African Prime Minister John Vorster made his first visit to the Jewish state, Goldreich took action. Among other things, he plastered telephone poles in Jerusalem with posters juxtaposing Vorster’s name with swastikas.
Jews & Democratic Party, Live Tisha B'Av with Maccabeats, Women Russian Writers, YIVO
SUNDAY AUGUST 4, 2019 06:00A Week in Review JBS Week In Review Week in Review with JBS anchor Teisha Bader bringing viewers stories from the past week of Jewish interest in America, Israel and around the world. A JBS News exclusive. 06:30A Harmony Yoga Kripalu Yoga Sessions Occupational Therapist and Reiki Master Carol Shwidock leads viewers through yoga exercises to strengthen and restore body, mind and spirit.
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